On Friday morning our downstairs toilet started leaking water into the bathroom. Initially the water appeared to be clean, but by Saturday morning it had a faint whiff to it. If we flushed the toilet upstairs or emptied the bath, water mysteriously appeared in the ground floor bathroom.
Two years ago we had the same problem, (see Treasure maps, pee and poo) so using my best Italian, I called the poo man to come and clear the blockage.
Mr Poo Man to the rescue
Hi, I Pecora Nera, me toilet blocking, you come here yesterday now.
Poo Man: Hi Pecora Nera, How are you, I will come and fix the problem on Monday.
Fantastic. Where, erh When?
Poo Man: In the afternoon.
I told Mrs Sensible that the Poo Man was coming on Monday afternoon and everything would soon be back to normal, or at least as normal as our house gets. I cancelled my afternoon lessons and waited and waited and waited.
Waiting for the Poo Man is not fun
Not only didn’t the Poo Man turn up, but he wouldn’t answer any of my messages or telephone calls. Very late on Tuesday he sent me a message asking if he could come on Thursday morning. I knew by Thursday morning we would be swimming in poo. I sent a terse message back asking him where he was on Monday and could he please please come on Wednesday. I haven’t heard from him since…
When all else fails there is always Facebook, so I posted a message in one of the Facebook groups and a nice lady called Jill said she normally fixes her septic tank blockages with a garden hose pipe.
Hmm! All it takes is a hose pipe. I unscrewed the toilet and peered into the hole underneath it.
There appears to be a rather lot of poo down there..
I slowly fed the hose pipe down the hole and metre by metre it disappeared, after thirty minutes of pushing and pulling, the hose pipe finally stopped. I estimate the end of the hose pipe was some 20 metres down the hole. No matter how hard I pushed or twisted the hose pipe it wasn’t going any further.
And so I sat down and had a little think.
Just a little think.
And then I had a wonderful idea, if I suddenly turned the hose pipe on, the force of the water would blast the blockage of poo out of the way. I could then go out for a glass of wine.
And without a second though, I twisted the tap and fired the water down the hose pipe, the result was not quite as I had anticipated. The majority of the poo remained firmly in place some 20 metres down the pipe. But a rather large amount returned back up the pipe and created a rather spectacular fountain of poo, toilet paper and water in the middle of the bathroom.
I heard it, I smelt it but I didn’t really want to see it.
I will be honest, it was not the result I had wanted. It took me nearly 2 hours to mop the floor, walls and sink and I still had a blocked pipe. I decided I should give the Poo Man a quick call. I am not sure he will ever fully understand the message I left him, but I think he realised I was a little dissatisfied with him.
I sat down and had another little think.
If I could seal the space between my hose pipe and the hole, it might be possible to stop the water and poo escaping into the bathroom, it might actually force the poo into the septic tank where it belongs. And so I started to ram and stuff old sheets and cloth in the hole and around the hose pipe. I then added my weight by firmly standing on top of the cloth sealed hole and asked my assistant….. Mrs Sensible to turn the tap on.
I suddenly realised I might not have thought of everything.
As the water fired down the hose pipe for a second time, I realised I might have made a few miscalculations. There was the possibility that the pressure might actually force a thin but powerful jet of poo and water up past my makeshift seal and hit anyone stupid enough to be stood on top of the seal. Or worse still it might force the poo, toilet paper and a substantial amount of water in another direction altogether and exit out the kitchen sink, or the bidet that was currently right next to my left elbow.
It was a distinct possibility
The hose pipe shuddered in my hands and I pushed it deeper into the hole to seal it and it moved, about 20 centimetres, so I shoved it again and again. I silently prayed that the kitchen was not being turned into a disaster area and the poo was really going in the direction I wanted it to go.
Happy days
I am sure you are pleased that there is an happy ending to this post. When Mrs Sensible turned off the water, the pipe was completely clear. The Pecora Nera house is now back to normal, or as normal as it ever is.
Englishman in Italy 
Omg….this made me laugh only because though we do not have a septic tank (we live in the city), we do have blockages because our pipes are so old. The first time my husband went to fix it, well, it came back and spat all over him and quite a bit of our basement. He has learned, but accidents have still occurred.
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Oh stood there with my mouth open surveying the devastation. There was poo everywhere. Our tank is neither positioned properly nor built very good.
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It is the smell that always gets me, no matter how many windows are open, finally I tried incense and that seemed to mask it, until it vanished.
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Holy crap! What a mess. It was a crappy job. 🙂
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Just a little, my heart dropped when I heard the fountain erupt in the bathroom. I just thought oh mega oops!
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Nice lady? Thought you were unblocking the septic tank so ‘squirty dirty water’ would be released into the garden not the bathroom. But now you have another skill and can hire yourself out maybe?
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Lol, I partially blame you for this fiasco. You didn’t warn me I might create an indoor fountain 🤣🤣
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Holy cr*p, what a disaster! You’re a brave and resourceful man, and good at cleaning up poo, it seems. A career change is a definite possibilty.
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🤣🤣 The poo men in Italia earn a lot of money clearing blockages. One thing I was grateful for, was my nose was also blocked so I was unable to smell much
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But, what about Mrs Sensible, and the cats!
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What ?
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PS Your chosen illustrations were just perfect.
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I try, really I do
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Mrs S might say that you’re trying …
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You both have my compassion – I am chief poo unblocked in our household (our pipes mysteriously only block when PF is as work or away chasing crabs through mangroves on remote islands). Mrs S is a heroine. I ‘d be tempted to gift-wrap an offering from your septic tank and leave it on Poo-man’s doorstep.
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unblocker; not unblocked. Jeesh (no, NOT Jesse) I hate that correction thing.
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at least you had a great story out of it, and a lot of water gushing out of my mouth reading it )
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Congratulations! You did it yourself. I had a professional come out and do a similar thing with what was supposed to be the strongest jet in the world and while it didn’t splatter all over the whole bathroom, it did completely fill the bathtub with the type of material you describe. Clean-up was contained but there was a hefty price tag.
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What a fabulously horrific story well told in smelly detail! That was hilarious/not funny. We’ve had sewage come up our tub drain before but thankfully nothing like your fiasco!
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Mine was an incredible fountain.
It really was spectacular, fortunately my nose was blocked
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Oh my goodness – how awful! I thought it was bad enough dealing occasionally with a blocked loo that nearly flooded…
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It was madness, I am getting ready for our kids summer camp and praying it doesn’t block again
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That could be a terrible calamity (but it would make a great blog post! :D).
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You have a wonderful wife. I would never have been in the bathroom with you by the end of that project.
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Hysterical…what a great way to write about a difficult situation!
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Just a normal day around here 😜
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